there’s a lot to love Fire Emblem EngagementI particularly like its detail-oriented approach to strategic combat, which is more in line with some of the older entries in the series than Three Houses. I also do like its characters, though they’re arguably thinner than other recent Fire Emblem games. But one of the things I especially love about it is… just some quiet good performances.
Fire Emblem Engage has a handful of dark-skinned people, and it’s not that big of a deal in this game. There they are, the most natural thing in the world. It’s rare and I like it.
Japanese RPGs do have black characters, sure – Final Fantasy VII’s Barret is a classic example – but they’re arguably uncommon. Art is a reflection of the culture that created it, but from my experience exploring the country, blacks are probably less common in Japanese games than in Japan itself, especially in cities.
The debate was reignited recently, with Final Fantasy 16 director Naoki Yoshida’s comments essentially saying FF16 won’t have any major characters of color in its cast, as it aims to be a “story rooted in reality.” ’, even though it has dragons and magic. Some were outraged and disappointed, while others felt the developer’s vision of a medieval fantasy with less racial diversity should be respected. Social media has been unbearable for days.
But at the same time, there’s no denying that there’s an ongoing shift in design sensibilities, especially as a franchise like Fire Emblem tries to understand a newfound and growing audience in the West. It seems like some developers sat up and said: Hey, these people are playing our game, and it’s set in a fantasy world where pretty much anything can happen. So why aren’t they reflected somewhere in our cast? For a game like Persona set in real-life Japan, obviously non-Japanese characters will be rare. But Fire Emblem is pure fantasy – so let it rip.
There were some obvious black ally characters in Fire Emblem before, but one thing I really liked about Engage’s Timmera and Fogato was…they were there. The main characters, plugged into very traditional Fire Emblem series and anime storytelling tropes – but make no mistake, yes, they’re a different color than the rest of the cast.
Obviously, sometimes the media hype about these kinds of things is a good thing. Likewise, there are benefits for minority characters to more explicitly focus on, highlight, or showcase their culture. It depends on the settings. It depends on what the creator wants to accomplish. But in a tired, noisy world of constant culture wars, it’s sometimes nice to see a part of yourself in a game, no strings attached, no main message, no show song and dance about the how and why. That’s it.
When I first saw them, I was ready for the final product. When I heard that they were the princess and prince of one of the kingdoms founded in Engage, I was ready for that kingdom to be some kind of ironic tribe. But not like this! There’s a vaguely predictable Gerudo-esque desert vibe, but the kingdom is also subtly blended with a more western medieval look that blends in with the rest of the world. As for the princess and prince – they’re just very classic Fire Emblem characters, and I love them. They happened to be black royals served by a group of non-black knights and retainers. When you’re doing your post-battle debrief, there’s usually a handful of NPCs around, all of different backgrounds and skin tones. In this world, it’s normal. None of this is a big deal, and it feels like a big deal to me.
In particular, I love Timmera’s character archetypes and tropes, which appear in nearly every Fire Emblem game. She’s the kind of character that’s usually loved by fan-service-driven audiences, so it might be easy to stick with that mold. For the most part, she did—except for one way she didn’t.
Historically, it’s not a good thing for Nintendo to have many dark-skinned people in its games. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has nearly ninety playable characters, and the only one with dark skin is Ganondorf, who also pops up in the classic “guys corrupted by evil magic are so dark they’re basically gray” trope . I was one of those disappointed when they added Min Min from ARMS, when Twintelle was hugely popular and has been endlessly but lovingly captivated, right there. Fire Emblem Engage’s quiet performance, paired with a similar one in Pokemon, shows that the company isn’t completely powerless with this stuff – which makes me happy, and excited to see more of these characters in the future.
To be honest, the story of Fire Emblem Engage does leave me a little cold. In my opinion, the actual gameplay segments are much better than Three Houses, but the narrative isn’t as strong. But these late-game units and their worlds are exhilarating—and hopefully this quiet but very real representation becomes a genre norm.
